My Athens

Your Idea Won’t Stop the Free Fall of the Press

“The Free Press in Free Fall” is the title of the current exhibition at ATHICA, a contemporary art gallery here in Athens, Ga.

The checklist reprinted below does a nice job of summarizing the myriad difficulties facing any proposal to stop the free fall of journalism.

I’m not really sure of the provenance of this checklist, but I found it here. 

The "Your Idea Won't Work" Checklist

"Your post advocates a

( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) crowd-sourced

approach to saving journalism. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws owing to the avariciousness of modern publishers.)

( ) It does not provide an income stream to the working journalist

( ) Nobody will spend eight hours sitting in a dull council meeting to do it

( ) No one will be able to find the guy

( ) It is defenseless against copy-and-paste

( ) It tries to prop up a fundamentally broken business model

( ) Users of the web will not put up with it

( ) Print readers will not put up with it

( ) Good journalists will not put up with it

( ) Requires too much cooperation from unwilling sources

( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once

( ) Many publishers cannot afford to lose what little business they have left

( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

( ) Even papers run by trusts and charities are already going bankrupt

Specifically, your plan fails to account for...

( ) Readers' unwillingness to pay for just news

( ) The existence and popularity of the BBC

( ) Unavoidable availability of free alternatives

( ) Sources' proven unwillingness to "go direct"

( ) The difficulty of investigative journalism

( ) The massive tedium of investigative journalism

( ) The high cost of investigative journalism

( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes

( ) Editorial departments small enough to be profitable are too small to do real reporting

( ) Legal liability of "citizen journalism"

( ) The training required to be even an rubbish journalist

( ) What readers want, in the main, is celebrity and football

( ) The necessity of the editing process

( ) Americans' huge distrust of professional journalism

( ) Reluctance of governments and corporations to be held to account by two guys with a blog

( ) Inability of two guys with a blog to demand anything

( ) How easy it is for subjects to manipulate two guys with no income

( ) Rupert Murdoch

( ) The inextricably local nature of much newsgathering

( ) The dependence of all other forms of news media on print reporting

( ) The dependence of national press on local press reporting

( ) Technically illiterate politicians

( ) The tragedy of the commons

( ) The classified-driven business model of much print publishing

( ) The tiny amounts of money to be made from online ads for small sites

..and the following philosophical objections may also apply: 

( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical

( ) That the US press dropped the ball on Iraq is a symptom, not a cause

( ) Print advertising pays so well because advertisers *can't* work out the return they're getting

( ) Information does not want to be free

( ) Society depends on journalists producing news that few readers are actually all that interested in, quite honestly

( ) That your friend was misquoted once in a paper does not mean journalism is bunk

( ) Everybody reading the same story is a feature, not a bug

( ) Having a free online "printing press" doesn't turn you into a journalist any more than your laser printer did

( ) Wall Street won't allow newspaper groups to back off from 20% profit margins

( ) Newspaper executives are second only to record industry executives for short-sighted idiocy

( ) E-paper still doesn't give publishers back their ad monopoly and hence its revenue

( ) You can't charge for online content unless all your competitors do it too, all at once

( ) Ethics are hard to hold up when your bills are due

( ) Citizen journalists are almost as good as citizen dentists

( ) "Gatekeepers" can help keep out undesirable things

( ) Publishing less often makes you even less relevant

( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem

( ) Free society depends upon a free press

( ) Democracy is bad enough with the press we've already got

( ) You think print is bad? Imagine Fox News, as a blog. That's what your idea will turn into.

( ) Reader-generated content is to professional news what YouTube is to big-studio movies

( ) Have you read the comments on news websites? They make YouTubers look like geniuses. 

Furthermore, this is what I think about you: 

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work

( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it

( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down! "

Image credit: A screenshot from A Graphic History of Newspaper Circulation Over the Last Two Decades, a post published at The AWL.

How Are Local Mom and Pops Doing?

In the past few days, the Grady Journal, a Web site for UGA journalism students, has been publishing stories about local businesses and how they are faring during the current recession.

It looks like the stories are the result of an assignments for Jour5300, a course on public affairs reporting. I’ve tried to link to all of the stories, but I may have missed some.

The stories are good reads, and—if you read them all—give a nuanced feel for what local shop owners are going through.

Athens Five Points Yoga

Ben's Bike Shop

Cali ‘N Tito’s

Classic City Comics & Games

Daily Groceries Co-op

Dolphin Dive Center

Homeplace Gifts and Toys

Jot’Em Down Country Store and BBQ

Normal Hardware

Rattles & Rhymes

Remedy Herbal Pharmacy

Sudz Laundry

Suska

White Tiger

Photo montage composed of images from The Grady Journal.

Partnership Saves Daily Local News for Athens

[If worse comes to worst, here’s a news story I’d like to read…]

By Dan Lorentz

ATHENS, GA., March 32, 2010 (PDN*) — If the plans of an unusual partnership go forward as expected, the daily news drought here will soon be over. That’s a welcome development for starved local news junkies. But the bigger story—according to national media observers—may turn out to be not that daily local news was saved, but how it was saved.

“What’s happening in Athens—the new partnerships, the new business model, the new print and online formats—might give us a template for keeping quality local journalism alive everywhere,” said Todd Chitlin, a noted media critic and professor at Iowa University’s prestigious journalism program in Dubuque.

Response to the “news drought”

The news drought started three months earlier in January when the Athens Banner, the daily newspaper, suspended operations after its parent company, the Atlanta-based Norris Publishing, Group, declared bankruptcy.

Almost immediately the publisher and staff at Athens Flagpole, the weekly alternative newspaper, launched a local news blog—called Athens Observed—and started publishing multiple news posts daily. Contributors not only included reporters from both papers and the local public radio station but also a group of independent bloggers and journalism students.

At the same time, a number of concerned citizens joined this group of contributors and formed a group called Save Our News to figure out a way to support quality local journalism, including some form of daily news.

“Like the death of a friend”

“That first morning without a paper was shock to many of us,” said Michael Smitts, a local activist and occasional blogger who helped organize the group. “It felt like the death of a friend, a friend who was always there, a friend who always had something interesting to say, who somehow managed to make you feel part of a family, a community.”

“We had to do something to fill the void,” Smitts said. “But right from the beginning nobody was interested in supporting shoddy, under-staffed news coverage or raising money to pay for wire services and syndicated columnists you can find anywhere. We wanted to find a way to support and sustain quality, locally-produced public service journalism. Ironically, the death of the local daily really jolted us into reinventing and improving local coverage.”

The Flagpole & Banner is born

After two and a half months of meetings—ranging from initial brainstorming sessions to discussions on fundraising strategy to a final round of agreement and contract signing, Save Our News announced the formation of Flagpole & Banner, a new local news organization for Athens under the leadership of Athens Flagpole publisher Commoner McPete and Athens Banner publisher Scooter Norris.

And today at a press conference held in the reopened newsroom of the Athens Banner, the publishers of the Flagpole & Banner promised that a new daily paper would be hitting newsstands and doorsteps in May. They also said to look forward to expanded Thursday and Sunday editions of the paper, and a new Web site devoted to local news, opinion and culture.

A non-profit with a big grant

Because the current model of for-profit local newspapers is losing its ability to subsidize quality public service journalism, the publishers said Flagpole & Banner would be a non-profit venture at least for the foreseeable future. Which means the bulk of money for the new effort will come foundation grants and individual gifts much like how public radio stations are currently funded.

The McKnight Foundation, which, like the more famous Knight Foundation, funds innovative local public service journalism projects, has agreed to multi-year, multi-million dollar grant to Flagpole & Banner.

A peak at the future

While many details have yet to be worked out, McPete and Norris discussed some of their plans for the fledgling news organization and its products. Here is a summary of their remarks.

A trim, tabloid daily paper. For readers who simply must have paper with their news, there will be the new Flagpole & Banner Daily Bulletin. It will be a tabloid with slightly larger type and run about 20 pages a day. It will be free, though customers who want home delivery will have to pay for that. Apart from one column of wire service briefs on national and international news, the paper will be devoted to local news and happenings. But readers will find their favorite comics, a sports section, classified ads, birth, crime reports, death and marriage announcements and locally written op-eds and letters.  In general, articles in the bulletin will be shorter than articles used to be in the old Athens Banner.

An expanded Thursday paper. On Thursdays, the Daily Bulletin will contain a second section, called “The Weekend Manual,” which will give readers a comprehensive guide to local happenings for the upcoming weekend. It will also include reviews of restaurants, movies, art shows, and music offerings.

An innovative, multi-sectioned Sunday paper. The big Sunday paper will come in as many as nine sections, including:

“News & Views,” which will contain a summary of the week’s local news, longer background and analysis articles on major local issues and locally written op-eds.

“Scrapbook,” devoted to documenting ordinary life in Athens during the past week, will feature lots of photos of local folks at school, work and play as well as interviews and brief sketches of Athenians.

“MFA”, or the music, film and arts section, will cover the people and the issues in the local arts community.

“Table and Garden” will give readers tips about what to cook and grow, and will cover the vibrant food and restaurant scene in town.

There will also be “Funny Pages,” a section devoted to mainly locally produced comics and humor; a “Shopper’s Guide” for smart local consumption; a sports section; a business and jobs sections and an indexed advertisment and coupon supplement.

A full-service Web hub. Most of what readers can get from a newspaper, they will get at Flagpole & Banner’s flagship Web site, to be called “Flagpole & Banner.” This will include news and feature stories about all things local—politics, business, crime, culture and sports. Readers will find obituaries and weather forecasts, too. And photos and video clips. What readers won’t find here is national and international news from wire services. This will be all local. The plan calls for an uncluttered, easy-to-read and navigate site that contains only a few discreet, non-up-popping ads. Every article and every photo will be easy to print, and there will be free access to the archives. The site will link to all the other content produced by Flagpole & Banner.

Standalone guides. Flagpole & Banner will publish two annual magazine format guides to Athens. The “Annual Manual,” which—much like Athens Flagpole’s Guide to Athens—will be a comprehensive guide to enjoying what Athens has to offer in terms of restaurants, bars, parks and art. The “Athens Power Guide” will orient citizens to community leaders, government and key local issues.

An AV department, and community forums. As part of its broader concept of what local news can be, Flagpole & Banner will not only produce text and graphical products, it plans to create or commission digital audio and video documentaries about local places, people and issues. These productions will be available online. The organization also plans to sponsor well-organized, well-publicized educational community forums on major local issues.

Athens: the new capital of local journalism?

“If Flagpole & Banner deliver what they are promising,” said media critic Chitlin, “Athens, Ga. will suddenly become the new national capital of local journalism. It’s a very exciting prospect—the city is so full of talent that I’m betting it will succeed and show the rest of the nation the way forward.”

___ ___ ___

* This post is a work of fiction. PDN is the acronym for Pipe Dream News, a fake news service that syndicates (actually, pretends to syndicate) fictional news accounts of people, places, things and happenings that do not exist but would be cool if they did.

In addition to being fictional, this post is not entirely composed of fresh material. I borrowed a little from posts I’ve written elsewhere, including one about a Sunday paper I’d like to see, and from a series about the future of local journalism.

Athens Power Guide 2009-2010

“For such a small town, this is really a good guide.”

I said that—or something much like it—to my wife last summer about the Flagpole Guide to Athens 2008-2009. We were just moving to town, and happy to keep discovering good things about our new little home city. Like the freakishly large number of good restaurants. Like helpful city planning department employees. Like an unusually fine weekly newspaper that also puts out a very readable, user-friendly guide to enjoying life in town.

Getting good advice on where to eat, drink and play in a particular place is extremely useful, especially for newcomers. Flagpole’s guide delivers the goods. It’s an excellent orientation on how to live the good life here in Athens. But the guide whetted my appetite for an even broader orientation.

The guide’s first section—under the heading “Athens Stuff”—sketches some basics about city history, population, government structure, the university and key local issues and laws. For a guide devoted to dining and entertainment opportunities, this brevity makes sense. Still, as a newcomer, I felt hungry for more after reading it.

So, to satisfy myself, I propose that Flagpole publish a second guide to Athens—something I think might be fun to call the Athens Power Guide.

This guide should give readers a solid orientation to the issues, politics, leaders and government of Athens. But it shouldn’t be content with offering a bland civics lesson. It shouldn’t focus exclusively on official government. It shouldn’t just be a directory city services and departments…and…well, maybe it would be better to put forward some positive—and more specific—suggestions about what the guide should do.

Paint a survey of major issues, but don’t oversimplify. Pick the seven-to-ten biggest issues currently facing the city. For each issue, prepare a text and infographic package that tell readers what the issue is, why it’s important for the city, who’s involved with it and why, what the alternatives are, when action will likely be taken, and how to get involved with the issue. Don’t be afraid of complex issues—just slow down, and be extra inventive about making things clear and interesting. Be fair to all sides, of course, but not at the expense of lending credence to factually dubious assertions.

Tell us who’s in charge officially, and give us “performance reviews”. Head shots, district maps, job description, contact information—yes, give us all that for every local elected and appointed government official. But give us more, too. Tell us about their major efforts while in office, their voting record on major issues, who their main supporters and allies are, what friends and foes have to say about them.

Part the curtains to show behind-the-scenes players, and tell us what they want. Government officials are hardly the only important people in town. Businesspeople, directors of non-profit organizations, church leaders, neighborhood group presidents, lobbyists, campaign managers and even newspaper editors and publishers are frequently very powerful political players in the local scene. Who are these people in Athens? Tell us who they are, who they’re connected to, what they want, and how they go about trying to get it.

Advise us on how to get involved. Tell us how to get heard at city hall. Give us tips on how to be an effective citizen lobbyist and how to testify at public hearings. Lay out election deadlines. Show us, step-by-step, how to become a candidate for office. Provide contact information for non-profits seeking volunteers.

Yes, yes: include a directory of city services. While boring as journalism, residents find such directories useful. This one probably doesn’t need to be as comprehensive as Athens-Clarke County’s ACC from A to Z, but it should contain phone numbers and web addresses for all frequently requested services.

Write it in the style of Flagpole’s local government reporters. Keep the tone informal, but the thinking and reporting precise. Be patient and civilized, but don’t be taken for a fool. Encourage engagement, gently. Despair infrequently. Just like Ben Emanuel, John Huie and Kevan Williams do.

Those are my main suggestions, and they all concern the editorial content of the guide. But I’ve got a few more ideas about other aspects of the guide.

• Supplement the guide with a Web site that keeps the information up-to-date, provides alerts on government hearings and votes, and links to relevant ordinances, laws and administrative rulings.

• Publish the Athens Power Guide every two years just like the Guide to Athens. Pretty soon local history buffs will have a very interesting two-volume biennial series on the city to consult.

• Partner with the Athens Banner Herald—a newspaper with a handful of its own good local reporters—and University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication to secure all the hands needed to produce the guide.

• Distribute the guide to every household or to every voter in Athens. Include an indexed advertising supplement—maybe an expanded version of Flagpole’s Shopping Guide?—with lots of coupons with the Athens Power Guide to help defray costs. Or round-up a group of philanthropists—some local, some national—to float the effort.

Such a guide would satisfy the need of newcomers like me to get a decent feel for local politics. Frankly, it would probably help many longtime citizens get a firmer grasp, too.

I’d also bet that publishing something like the Athens Power Guide would attract national attention as an innovative local public service journalism project. It would—I can see it!—earn kudos for Athens, the small city whose journalists are forging a new, progressive future for local journalism throughout America even as the local dailies die.

Why Local Newspapers Are Good to Have Around

Local newspapers like the Athens Banner-Herald aren’t just good for covering boring government meetings, high school sports and the local entertainment scene. They’re also good to have around when something happens to a historically and psychologically important local institution—like the recent fire at the Georgia Theatre.

Of course, the paper reports the news—the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the fire. But that straight news reporting, especially when it’s supplemented with historical accounts, photos and collections of first-person anecdotes, really helps weave together memories and strengthens community identity.

Doing that for a community takes a lot of work, and it’s not easily replicated or replaced. Local bloggers Hillary Brown and Johnathan McGinity posted similar observations earlier. Let’s hope our local daily survives.

Organized Burglary, Looming Deadline, Don Nelson

Just how organized is burglary in Athens? Joe Johnson’s story about burglaries in Sunday’s Athens Banner-Herald really intrigued me. I want to know more about organized fencing operations, and about whether Athens police are doing a good job busting burglars. How did some Pakistani convenience store owners get into this racket, and why? What's the history behind this connection? Are there other organized fencing operations at work here? How are other cities fighting burglaries? How would crime-fighting experts evaluate our cops’ efforts? [Photo credit: Flickr user timsamoff]

*  *  *

Will next Friday’s paper be the last for Athens Banner-Herald? Probably not, but June 12 is the deadline for Morris Publishing Group LLC, the parent company of the Athens Banner-Herald, to make a $9.7 million interest payment. According to this article, the interest payment is way, way overdue and creditors could—if the payment isn’t made—force the publishing company to start repaying more than $400 million in bonds, interest and revolving credit. What’s going to happen? I’m afraid for the future of local news coverage here, though in this letter the publisher told us not to worry. [Photo credit: Flickr user Dan Lorentz]

*  *  *

Newspaper reporting can’t be replaced by bloggers. Don Nelson, Athens Banner-Herald business reporter, columnist and editor, is a good example of why not. This collection of Nelson’s columns is a great way to learn about Athens, and it offers a taste of what a good, full-time, paid, professional journalist brings to the table: clear writing, insightful choice of topics, diligent research, steady productivity, deep knowledge of the local scene and years of experience. You just don’t—can’t—get that whole package from local bloggers, who usually aren’t paid and don’t have copy editors. [Photo credit: Athens Banner-Herald]